Democrats pound McCain over '100-year' remark
By Brian C. Mooney, Globe Staff
Almost daily, Democrats hammer John McCain for supporting a 100-year war in Iraq, putting their spin on McCain's answer months ago to a voter in New Hampshire to draw the starkest distinction possible on one of the defining issues of this year's presidential election.
The presumptive Republican nominee says that his Democratic rivals are distorting his views. He explains that he never favored such a long war, but rather envisioned an open-ended military presence of peacekeepers, similar to US military commitments in Korea and Bosnia and even Japan and Germany.
But some academic and political analysts say McCain's argument fails to distinguish between other US occupations and an extended presence in a disputed, volatile flashpoint. One historian who opposes the war said today that the Arizona senator's analogy has no true precedent in those earlier conflicts.
"Were the US to succeed militarily in Iraq, yes, US forces will remain in Iraq for decades to come," said Andrew J. Bacevich, a Boston University professor of international relations and US history and retired Army colonel whose son, an Army soldier, was killed last year by a suicide bomb there. "My difference with McCain is I don't think we will prevail militarily in Iraq."
Bacevich, who has written or edited several books about US diplomatic and military policy, took issue with McCain's comparisons to World War II, which he called total conventional war; Korea, which he said was limited conventional war; and Bosnia, which he described as "a police action." Iraq is fundamentally different, he said.
"As devastated as Germany and Japan were in 1945, there really still was an identifiable German nation-state and an identifiable Japanese nation-state. So there was something to build upon," Bacevich said. "In Iraq, it's not even clear there is a nation-state and there's little evidence there is an effective Iraqi government. That tends to suggest a long-term presence in Iraq will not be a peacekeeping one but one in which we're engaged in a very, very long, ugly unconventional war."
McCain's 100-year remark, initially made Jan. 3 at a town hall-style meeting in Derry before the New Hampshire primary, has taken on a life of its own. Several videos of it on YouTube are circulating among antiwar and Democratic groups.
In recent days, the comment has sparked some of the campaign's most heated exchanges between McCain and Democrat Barack Obama.
While McCain and Republicans say that Obama is trying to "swindle voters" with "dishonest smears" by repeating the remark, the Illinois senator is undeterred, telling reporters today in Pennsylvania, "Senator McCain has been saying I don't understand national security, but he's the one who wants to keep tens of thousands of United States troops in Iraq for as long as 100 years."
Danny Hayes, a Syracuse University political science professor who specializes in political communication, said the Democrats' pounding on the subject could hurt McCain "to the extent that this remark or similar remarks feed into a larger picture of McCain as having a more aggressive foreign policy, or one that may tie him more closely to the Bush administration than perhaps he would like."
Hayes drew a parallel between McCain's 100-year remark and the comment that stuck to Senator John F. Kerry during his unsuccessful run as Democratic presidential nominee in 2004. Explaining in shorthand the complexities of two different versions of an appropriations bill to support the war effort in Iraq and Afghanistan, Kerry famously remarked: "I actually did vote for the $87 billion before I voted against it."
Kerry later called it "one of those inarticulate moments," but Republicans used the comment in TV ads and repeated it relentlessly through the fall campaign, cementing an image of Kerry as a flip-flopper.
Four years later, the Democrats are trying to return the favor.
How do you write an entire article on this subject without quoting the actual exchange? I was able to find it in 30 seconds:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8SF47hn15bg
The claim that McCain wants a 100-year war is complete BS. If the Media weren't so in the tank for Obama, it would never have gotten any traction.
Why don't you try practicing journalism sometime, Foon Rhee.
McCain = Draft
Army Chief of Staff General George Casey tells us that our military is way overstretched, and that tours-of-duty will have to become shortened. General (ret) Barry McCaffrey has said that we are so lowering recruitment standards just to keep our numbers up that he is concerned for the long-term quality of the military. Republican presidential candidate John McCain states he “is confident" that Americans will be patriotic enough to answer the call to duty and volunteer in sufficient numbers for the military. McCain is dead serious when he talks about his war policy. He wants to continue the Iraq War. He pledges to increase the US commitment to fight al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. He wants to follow Osama bin Laden to the gates of hell. He also speaks of other wars. If we continue along the path our president has us locked into and that McCain supports, we will need more quality ‘volunteers’ than are willing. That means McCain must recruit folks who don’t want to be recruited. That means the return of the draft.
Obama: Deceiver-in-Chief.
Anybody who has viewed the town hall meeting knows exactly what McCain said. It's disgusting & pathetic that Obama thinks we Americans are so stupid as to fall for such deception. But then again polls show Americans have fallen for his Wright/absent-from-church-that-day deception. Still a lot of folks are beginning to smell a rat. Now a Boston "historian" appears out of thin air to proxy for Obama and nuance the deception even further. It's just another slick but deperate attempt by the old Chicago political machine headed by David Axelrod to float Obama: Deceiver-in-Chief.
You have to keep in mind that McCain is 72. That means his perspective on 100 years is different from ours.
So if he's 73 in his first year, that will make him 76 in the last year of his first term. I think it's inappropriate for a 76 year old person to try to become President. You're talking about 60+ hour work weeks, lots of sleep deprivation, and more stress than any of us will ever experience in our lives.
I know this sounds like age discrimination, but if it rings true, I think that's because it's a legitimate reflection of reality: Would you let your 76 year old grandfather make a decision about how to react to a situation that might require a nuclear response? Honestly. Are you comfortable with someone like that, sleep deprived from an outrageously difficult schedule for four years filled with stress levels that are exponentially higher than what he's under now, making decisions about a nuclear response to an attack that maybe has unclear origins or fuzzy factual data? These aren't generally black and white or light gray dark gray decisions.
My grandfather could carry on a good conversation at that age, but I wouldn't want him running a business on a day-to-day basis, and I certainly wouldn't want him making life and death decisions "at 3am."
No one has really begun to talk about this, and I know it wreaks of discriminatory thought, but let's be honest; age is a legitimate basis of discrimination. We don't let people become President who are under 35. We don't let people under 18 or 21 drink alcohol. It seems to me like the mind starts to go when you get north of 70 years old. You put someone who's 35 under a 60 hour a week schedule of high stress meetings and situations, and it does some real damage to their coherence after awhile. A 76 year old man (McCain in year four) can't be at 100% or even 75% after a rough week. You wake me up at 3am and I'm about 80% there. My grandfather is probably about 20% there.
It's irresponsible for the Republicans to put him on the ballot.
This is not a minor issue. This is THE issue that must be addressed precedent to consideration of any issues of detail and substance of the campaign. Can we DEPEND on this person's metal faculties while he is between 73 and 76 years of age.
I also think that it's difficult to deny that he probably has some level, however mild, of post traumatic stress disorder from being tortured for five years--that has an effect that people don't fully recover from.
It all adds up to a major question that we're going to have to address, no matter how culturally uncomfortable it might be to speak about old age our capacities to meet mental and physical demands. When I turn 70, I'm planning on turning in my car keys and giving up my shotgun.
How old is too old? 80? 85?
Do you just judge it when you see it? I know people who are 70 and run companies. I know people who are 70 and have no idea what's going on. Most people fall somewhere in the middle. Are you willing to trust that what you see of McCain during this campaign will guarantee four years of solid cognitive faculties as he ages from 73 to 76?
This is dangerous stuff.
This blogger might want to review your comment before posting it.
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